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Howdy Joe! This is a confusing topic for me, because there are some special rules for CHARs and BYTEs in netCDF. As far as NC_BYTE goes, note this comment from the Users' Guide: "It is possible to interpret byte data as either signed (-128 to 127) or unsigned (0 to 255). However, when reading byte data to be converted into other numeric types, it is interpreted as signed." As for NC_CHAR, it is given a fill value of 0 because, when interpreted as a char in C, this will yeild a string of size zero. Let me know if this didn't answer your questions! Thanks, Ed Ticket Details =================== Ticket ID: CZF-138501 Department: Support netCDF Priority: Urgent Status: Closed